Leaving
by Jusmine
Summary: “There’s no point in both of us leaving.” Written for The Firm's June prompt challenge.


**A/N:** Written for The Firm's prompt challenge. I used the prompts _metal_, and _sarcasm_ (it is in there - look closely. :D)

**Disclaimer:** Alex Rider belongs to Anthony Horowitz. *sobs*

---

It was over. It was finally over.

It had been so long in coming, and there had been so many false alarms along the way that Alex somehow couldn't make himself all excited about it.

He had hoped and maybe even prayed to whatever god that this would happen. Really, he should be fucking _ecstatic_ about this.

All this time spent working for _them_, all this time wondering when he would die, and it was all over, now. No more worrying, no more being pulverized by MI bloody 6.

Jack would be happy - she would be ecstatic enough for the both of them, and yet the thought of all that emotion made Alex want to bolt in the other direction.

Instead, he kept walking steadily up the walkway to his home, the clumping sound of the walker he was clinging to resounding in his head. The two agents hovered on both sides of him, waiting for Alex to need help. Well, sod them. Alex was through with MI6. They could keep their spook hands the fuck away from him.

Jack would be optimistic about this whole thing, too, even after the initial tears, because, hey, he was _free_ now. But, damnit, he didn't know if he would be able to stand her reassurances. He was never going to walk normally again, or play football, no matter what she tried to tell him.

MI6 would have never have given him a permanent visa for Jack if they thought he could ever be useful again.

When he reached the door, he almost turned around. Then he saw the shadow of Jack through the reinforced glass of the door. She was walking around with a duster in hand, her shoulders tense, and her eyes permanently fixed on the telephone.

Alex felt a stab of guilt. He'd asked them not to call Jack. He hadn't wanted her to have to sit in the cold hospital while he was in surgery, but he had no explanation for why he hadn't called her later. He could have called her at any time during the three weeks he was lying in the white hospital bed recuperating, but he hadn't called.

Maybe it had something to do with holding off the actual realization as long as possible. He knew that he'd always limp, but he didn't _know_ it yet. Jack's optimism and reassurances would only serve to remind him of the white-hot, all-consuming pain when the bullets shattered his shin.

The pain had been immediate, making him forget the battle going on around him. He hadn't even been able to crawl to shelter, and his vulnerability had earned him a bullet to the upper arm as well. That bullet had skimmed straight through his flesh, not shattering his bones like the others - thank god - but it had (and still did) hurt like hell.

Alex would have died that day if it hadn't been for Wolf and Eagle. The two men had dragged him to safety and gotten him to a hospital quickly enough that neither of his wounds had a chance to become infected.

---

_The battle surrounded him, monopolizing his every sense. His senses were working on overdrive to protect him, and he could smell the blood and fear on the air, and hear the chatter of machine guns. _

_Bullets ate up the ground around his feet, but Alex kept running, and miraculously, none of the bullets found their target._

_Alex slammed into a building, grabbing the edge of the its wall and swinging around to the side. Never slowing down, and never, ever stopping was the only way that he'd ever get to the bomb before it went off._

_Alex was gasping now. After three days of captivity and malnutrition, his body wasn't strong enough to keep up this pace forever, even with the adrenaline singing through his veins._

_The exhaustion was becoming more pronounced even as he forced himself to run faster, his feet sinking into the soft, wet ground._

_He was out of the battle now, but the bomb had had five minutes on the timer, and he'd lost track of how long it had been. He estimated that he had only one minute (maybe less) to reach and defuse it._

_Now he could see the small shed with the bomb. Alex didn't know what the fuck these people wanted to blow up, but he had to stop it, or part of nearby London would go up as well as the complex. _

_Finally, Alex reached the shed. The door was locked, but only with a padlock. Alex snapped his foot forward in a kick that bent the flimsy metal enough to unlatch it. _

_He yanked the door open and dashed inside. There was a table in the middle of the room with the bomb sitting on top of it. The detonator was blinking angrily at him. The red light was bright in the shaded shed. _

_A quick glance at the detonator's digital face told him he had exactly thirty seconds left. _

_He quickly set about turning it off. He stabbed the conveniently-placed "cancel" button on the detonator. Nothing happened. Alex pushed down the panic bubbling in his stomach, just trying t keep his mind clear enough to think._

_It made sense that it wouldn't be that simple. They must have locked it somehow, and nothing he could do with the buttons would work. _

_Fifteen seconds left, and Alex knew absolutely fucking nothing about bombs. The wires were just that, wires tangled up in a mass of other, nearly identical, wires._

_Ten seconds._

_Alex gave up on reasoning and just started ripping at any wire he could reach._

_There was a sudden, searing pain in his left arm. He cried out at the sharp pain and looked down. Drops of red blood were falling from his arm to the floor, and he could see where the bullet had entered his flesh._

_Five seconds were left. He used only his right arm to work at the wires, holding his left protectively to his side. _

_Four seconds._

_Three…_

_Two…_

_The clock blinked off just as it was changing to read one second. Alex braced himself for the explosion, but it never came._

_He stood there, gasping for breath, more than slightly shell-shocked, and hazy with pain._

_Suddenly the world went red, and he found himself on the ground, his world burning up into fiery heat._

_He stared down to the source of the pain, and saw one leg, and something else that was wearing his tattered jeans and blood._

_He threw up at the sight of what used to be his leg. His last thought as he retched was that it figured that somebody would be guarding the bomb._

_The next thing he knew, he was staring at Wolf and Eagle. He could dimly hear the rotors of a helicopter spinning._

_Alex blinked, and Wolf was suddenly crouching right by his head. "It'll be all right, Cub. Just hang in there."_

_Alex took a moment to appreciate the sight of Wolf being comforting._

_---_

_The next time he woke, he was on a gurney, being dashed down a hospital corridor._

_A nurse running beside Alex saw that he was awake, and immediately began to speak gently, reassuring him. "I know the pain is bad, but don't worry, we're going to help dull it soon."_

Oh, thanks_, Alex thought sarcastically. He'd been able to block out the pain, (they must have given him some type of painkillers in the helicopter) but now it was back full force. _Thanks a lot_. _

_He focused his wandering mind back to the "helpful" nurse, blinking rapidly to try to get rid of the blurriness. "_They_ told us that you live with a guardian. Is that right?" she was saying. She didn't wait for him to figure out how to answer. "All right, then. We'll contact them immediately. Right now you're - " _

"_Don't call Jack," Alex croaked out, hazily._

"_What?" the nurse asked, staring at him. "Of course we'll call him!"_

"_Don't want to worry her," Alex gasped._

"_Won't she be worried when you don't come home tonight?" The nurse switched pronouns without batting an eye._

"_She's not expecting me." Alex could feel himself slipping into unconsciousness again. He lifted his right hand, barely registering the IV in his arm, and reached for the nurse. "Promise me you won't call her," he gasped out urgently._

_The nurse exchanged glances with one of the other nurses, who had been watching the entire exchange. "I promise," she said, but she looked uncertain._

_Alex really hoped she meant it._

---

His time in the hospital was a haze of painkillers, bandages and monotony. The physical therapy was the high point of his day, and that only because the pain during the PT was different than the steady ache and burn that was a constant the rest of the time.

He was pulled out of the white memories by a hand grabbing his arm. He reacted on instinct, kicking out too fast to remember the cast on his leg that was holding his shin together. It almost threw him off-balance, but he managed to grab onto his walker in time to avoid falling backwards down the steps. He cursed, breathing harshly at the sharp pains in both his arm and leg.

"Agent Rider," one of the agents said, and Alex ignored him in favor of trying to get the pain back under control.

"Alex," the other agent, the one that Alex hadn't kicked at, said. "Let us help."

Alex threw off their helping hands and snarled, "Fuck off," at them. He tried to open the door, but discovered that it was locked. He knocked, three brief pounds on the wooden frame of the door.

He heard running footsteps inside, but the door didn't open.

"Jack!" Alex leaned into the door. "It's me!"

The door was flung open, and Jack stood in the entrance. Her expression was so relieved that Alex felt even more guilty that he hadn't been able to just pick up the telephone and reassure her.

"Alex!" Jack shouted, and rushed forward to hug him. Then she collided with the walker and she froze, her eyes finally leaving his face to take in the bandage on his left arm, the walker, and the cast on his leg.

"I'm fine," Alex said quickly when he saw the panic surfacing in her eyes. "It's just a scratch."

Her weak smile told him that she didn't believe that for a second. But then she pasted a cheerful expression on, and suddenly she was the one giving false reassurances.

"It doesn't look very bad. I imagine it will hurt for a bit, though," she said, looking determinedly at his face, and no lower.

He smiled. "Aren't you going to let me in?"

"No, I'm going to let you stand out here all night," she returned half-heartedly without near enough bite to be actually sarcastic. She stepped aside.

Then she noticed the two agents who had been skulking out of sight of the door. "I'll take that," she snapped, grabbing Alex's bag out of the taller agent's hand, and treating both of them to a glare. She slammed the door in their faces and rushed over to help Alex sink down onto the couch.

"Where were you?" she asked, tucking a throw around the exhausted teen.

"Hospital," Alex yawned, relaxing under her careful ministrations.

"Where, though? France again?"

Alex shook his head, yawning again.

"You should get some sleep," Jack said, standing up. "C'mon, let's get you up to bed."

She tried to pull him up, but Alex shook his head and pulled her back down onto the couch.

"All I've been doing is sleeping for the past three weeks," he explained. Besides, he needed to get this over with now. "I was at St. Dominic's again," he admitted quietly.

He didn't look up at her. He didn't need to see her face to know that she'd been terribly worried all these weeks, and he'd been safe, but hadn't bothered to contact her.

She was silent for a long while, and Alex finally couldn't stand not knowing what she was thinking.

Her face was pale and drawn, and her eyes glistened, and Alex looked down again, quickly. "I'm sorry," he said helplessly.

"You were that close for three weeks?" Jack asked, quiet, strained, and Alex nodded silently. A few breaths of silence, of tension, then Jack exploded.

"What the fuck, Alex? Why didn't you call me?! I would've understood if you didn't call because you were in some peasant's house in some third-world country, but… fuck, Alex!" she said again. "You should have called me! I thought you were _dead_."

By the end, her voice had gone from angry to shaking, and Alex realized that she was crying.

He wanted to comfort her, but he couldn't make himself move the three inches to his left necessary to put his arm around her. All he could do was think _It's all my fault_.

He knew he should have called her. He'd known that then, too, but every morning, he'd opted not to, not wanting to deal with Jack. That reason, that excuse, was the worst reason possible, because Jack dealt with him, and all the issues that accompanied him, all the time. She wouldn't be in this situation if it wasn't for him.

She could have been done school with a degree and a job right now if she hadn't taken up Ian Rider's offer, and if she hadn't cared enough about Alex to stay and deal with him through all of this.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered again, brokenly.

She didn't reply, didn't acknowledge him in any way. Alex stood, carefully, not wanting to lose his balance and hurt her.

He hobbled out of the room and she didn't call him back, didn't tell him it was all right. It was then that he realized just how much he'd grown accustomed to her understanding and helping him, or not understanding but still being there for him.

All the other times he'd hit rock bottom, she'd been there to save him from himself. This time, though, he'd gone too far, taken a drill and dug down even deeper to where she could never pull him out.

One thing he knew for sure, he was on his own now.

He should never have left MI6.

---

Alex woke the next morning to the sound of gun fire and shouts.

He sat bolt upright, searching around the room to make sure that he was in no immediate danger.

The noises faded away even as he looked, and Alex remembered that he was no longer in the battle. He was nice and safe in his hospital room.

He fell back down on the pillow with a sigh. Then he froze. The pillow was much too soft. He sat up again, staring around the unfamiliar room. This was all wrong: the walls should be a soft brown, not green. There shouldn't be a laptop on that desk. Actually, that desk shouldn't even be there at all.

He felt the panic rising up again as he tried to figure out where he was. Really, it was the football poster that told him. The familiar players reminded him that he was at home, in a room that he'd hardly been in at all over the past years.

Alex closed his eyes, breathing heavily and trying to calm himself.

Eventually the helpless feeling left, shoved away by the pain in his leg. It was deep and throbbing and sometimes punctuated by sharp, quick bursts of agony.

He almost lost himself to the familiarity of it, almost enjoying the pain that could keep him grounded. Then he remembered the brief stint of locking himself safely in his room with a knife, enjoying the pain, and he scrambled over to the side of the bed and reached down to grab his bag. He pulled out a bottle pills and quickly dry-swallowed two. Then he leaned back and waited for the painkillers to save him from himself.

---

He woke up again some time later. The dreams hadn't returned, and the painkillers had worked their magic well enough, considering the circumstances.

He allowed himself a few minutes to relax, staring out the window into the sunny morning, and berating himself for not closing the blinds. He didn't particularly want to tempt any snipers.

He stood up as quickly as he could so that he couldn't change his mind about leaving the soft, warm bed behind.

He hobbled awkwardly across the room, skirting around the pile of sports gear that he'd accidentally knocked over the night before.

He stared around his room, considering. The laptop would be handy, but would he really have the space and energy for it? Other things would be more important, like clothes and shoes. It was nearing winter, and thick clothes took up a hefty amount of space.

Food would also be necessary. And water. He didn't have much money, and he wouldn't be able to access Ian's accounts for four more years, when he turned twenty one. Plus, it would be difficult to find a job in his current state. Bullet wounds on a teenager were bound to make any well-paying employer leery.

A blanket would probably be good as well. Who knew how long it would be before he could find an apartment or something to stay in, and he didn't particularly relish the idea of a park bench with just his street clothes on a chilly night.

When he finished packing, his bag wasn't completely full, and he again contemplated the laptop. _No_, he decided. Though it might be helpful for finding work or lodging (no way was he going to be able to stroll around London with this leg), he probably couldn't afford to take it with him. Too heavy, and any library computer would work perfectly fine.

Alex maneuvered awkwardly down the stairs. His bag kept slipping forwards off of his shoulder and onto his walker, making it extremely difficult.

Walking into the kitchen to get food, he almost walked straight into Jack.

"Sorry," he said quickly, awkwardly.

Then he noticed the bags sitting next to the door. "Going somewhere?" he raised an eyebrow at her.

"Yes," she replied, almost defensively. "What about you?"

He nodded distractedly. "Where?"

"Dunno. Anywhere."

" _- away from you,_" Alex heard, even though Jack didn't say it aloud.

"Oh," Alex said quietly.

"Where are you going, then?" Jack asked after a few awkward moments.

"A friend's," Alex said vaguely, and hopefully truthfully, though he doubted it. He didn't have many friends.

Jack nodded uneasily.

"Look," Alex said, finally. "There's no point in both of us leaving."

"You should probably unpack, then. There's some food in the fridge and pantry. It should last for a while."

"No," Alex disagreed, shaking his head. "I'll go; you can stay."

"I'm not going to throw an invalid out into the street!" she snapped.

"I told you, I'm going to a friend's," Alex lied. "The stairs here would be too hard for me to manage on my own," he added when she remained steadfast.

She seemed almost guilty at that, and Alex regretted having phrased it like that and reminding her that she was abandoning him.

"It's your house."

That was true, and more difficult to argue against, but he couldn't let her win. He'd caused her enough pain already - she didn't need to lose her home, too.

"Your's now," he returned coolly, shrugging.

She paused, obviously torn.

"Please," Alex added.

"At least have some breakfast before you leave," Jack said finally.

Alex smiled and nodded.

He clomped over to the fridge for the carton of eggs, the milk, a bag of cheddar cheese, and the bacon. It was only once he'd collected everything that he realized that he had no way of carrying it over to the counter.

He was about to ask Jack for help when everything was whisked out of his hands. By the time he got to the counter, Jack was already beating the eggs.

Alex added the milk and cheese while she stirred. Then he took over the stirring while she got out a pan and greased it.

Jack started cooking the eggs while Alex put the bacon on a plate and in the microwave.

No words were spoken throughout the cooking, and neither got in the other's way, or even close, dancing easily around each other.

It was a routine that they'd followed hundreds of times over the years.

Alex realized that, and he knew that Jack did as well by the glistening in her eyes.

When they sat down to eat, Jack passed Alex the salt before he even asked for it, and Alex had to hold back tears of his own. He didn't cry easily, but Jack had been his only family, and one of his closest friends for years, and he'd thrown it all away in a few weeks.

"How long did they say?" Jack asked, breaking the tense silence. "About the cast and walker, I mean."

"They said 'we'll see'," Alex replied wryly. "Jack," he said slowly a moment later, leaning forward, and meeting her eyes over the table. "They gave me a permanent visa for you."

At first she looked confused, and Alex could tell the moment she understood the subtleties of what he'd just said.

"That's great, Alex!"

So maybe she didn't get the subtleties. Alex decided not to enlighten her, so he just smiled.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly.

"Thank you," Jack said after a moment. "I know that what they've put you through is my fault, and - "

Alex shook his head. "No," he said, cutting her off. "It isn't your fault. I did it for you, sure, but because I wanted to. I didn't want to lose you."

Jack swallowed, and Alex looked down at his plate. Neither said anything, and Alex stood up quickly, grabbing his plate and putting it in the dishwasher.

"Bye, Jack," he tossed over his shoulder as he went through the doorway.

Jack closed her eyes, her breath catching around the lump in her throat. She was caught by indecision over something that should have been an easy choice. And, slowly, she realized that it was an easy choice.

She stood up, her chair skidding backwards, scraping over the floor.

"Alex!" she called, and caught him just as he was maneuvering the door with his walker. "There's no point in either of us leaving."

For a moment, he just stood there, one foot out the door, and Jack was afraid that he would still leave.

Alex knew that he would never have to work for MI6 again, and that was worth limping for the rest of his life, if Jack was there with him. So he smiled, and it was everything in their lives coming together again.

---

**A/N:** I'm truly sorry for this. I wasn't going to post it because it was so… _blah_ and messy and all over the place, but I really wanted to write a promptshot this month, and since I'm leaving for camp on Monday… Well, this is what you get. With my apologies. Hope your eyes aren't too terribly scarred (but betting they are) after reading this.


End file.
